Summary of “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” by Francis Schaeffer

This book of Schaefer is very well done, difficult to consider in light of the subject matter, immensely applicable in our day, confronts our passivity as salt and light, and flat out well written.

The first chapter “The Abortion of the Human Race” is a powerful expose of our dilemma as humans. Every culture in history will be eventually judged by how it treated people. Our choices do make us who we are, and who we are aids our choosing. When we reject God as the ultimate (I Am), inevitably we bite and devour one another through incest, child abuse, de-humanizing the fetus, its procedures, its cruelty and its viciousness is absorbed by the child and mother. This is a human issue, not a religious one. How the “mighty humans” have fallen!

Chapter two “The Slaughter of the Innocents” continues considering the results of the aforesaid accentuating that the abandonment of the biblical world-view of human beings not only leads to abortion on demand, but naturally leads to infanticide and euthanasia. The verdict is in: the unwanted fetus, the crippled and the old are absolutely dispensable according to the minority elite in (e.g., Law, Ethics, Biology, Medicine, and Philosophy).

These champion a relativistic view of man. If we continue in this, and it’s only a matter of time the Nazi Third Reich will rule in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave”. The absolute monstrosity of people toward the weak and helpless is none other than a return to the Abyss!

When we devalue our own flesh and our neighbor, we unwittingly kill ourselves. For the constant slicing open of the soul with cruelty will eventually cause our own doom. I’m exceedingly perturbed!

Chapter three “Death by Someone’s Choice” is a heinous reality check here! If those set apart to protect and to heal the weak and the aged, become their killers, then what hope have we? When language is euphemistically employed to destroy the helpless, then we’re no different than the Nazis. We’re there! And we must not only point out the problems, but we must also become part of the solution! Apathy is killing. But through love, money, and our time, we can yet be hope for those utterly vulnerable.

Chapter four “The Basis for Human Dignity” argues that the book of Genesis grounds our dignity, for unlike every other worldview, Genesis unfolds the origins of everything, the source of all, and explains the reason for the abnormality that now obtains. The basis for all knowledge moreover is grounded in Gods freely choosing to reveal the world to us in both special revelation and general revelation.

Chapter five “Truth and History” deals with the interrelatedness between the aforesaid, and can’t be separated from the Biblical accounts. If the narratives between Genesis and Revelation are false, the gig is up. If especially the resurrection of Christ is false and did not occur in space-time-history, then there’s no Christianity! There’s no veridical voice to heed. End of the story!

The last chapter “Our Personal Response and Social Action” has two major issues: First, there’s the need for us to be clear on the God who is there. Which then means that there’s absolute truth, that we are all accountable to our Creator for how we live, that Christ alone is the remedy for the abnormality—sin—that plagues society.

Second, there’s the need to live in light of the above mentioned…really. He encourages activism which among other things will dearly cost us, but the alternative apathy is not love. The rewards are worth it—God being glorified by creatures recognizing Christ as Savior and the dignity and freedom of people simultaneously being maintained.

Where are we thirty years after Schaeffer’s writing? It seems our culture is utterly lost. Oh God! May I and your church be what you’ve made us to be: salt and light!